To people like me, educated in post-war Britain, free speech has been a firm premise of the British way of life. — Roger Scruton Copy Share Image
One must recognise what all religious people know, which is that human beings are imperfect and fallen and there's no way in… — Roger Scruton Copy Share Image
You cannot own a symphony or a novel in the way you can own a Damien Hirst. As a result there are… — Roger Scruton Copy Share Image
In the traditional dances, physical contact was permitted in a way that it wasn't in everyday life. The electricity of physical contact… — Roger Scruton Copy Share Image
In the attacks on the old ways of doing things on word in particular came into currency. That word was "kitsch." Once… — Roger Scruton Copy Share Image
Beauty can be consoling, disturbing, sacred, profane; it can be exhilarating, appealing, inspiring, chilling. It can affect us in an unlimited variety… — Roger Scruton Copy Share Image
Music exists when rhythmic, melodic or harmonic order is deliberately created, and consciously listened to, and it is only language-using, self-conscious creatures… — Roger Scruton Copy Share Image
All of us need an identity which unites us with our neighbours, our countrymen, those people who are subject to the same… — Roger Scruton Copy Share Image
There is a crucial distinction to be made between innovation and originality. The second, unlike the first, can never break with what… — Roger Scruton Copy Share Image
If you're going to have a free economy, one in which the ordinary citizen can dispose of his own income, you're going… — Roger Scruton Copy Share Image
The robust English view used to be that the correct response to offensive words is to ignore them, or to answer them… — Roger Scruton Copy Share Image
Freedom can reside only in a point of view, a way of looking upon the system of necessity.Surely this is the one… — Roger Scruton Copy Share Image
Beauty is vanishing from our world because we live as though it does not matter. — Roger Scruton Copy Share Image
“So conceived, the English police force served to emphasize a fundamental truth about the English law, which is that it exists not to control… — Roger Scruton Copy Share Image
My 2018 ended with a hate storm, in response to my appointment as chair of the government's Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission. — Roger Scruton Copy Share Image
I've never been an optimist, but that's fine because pessimists have the possibility of being agreeably surprised. — Roger Scruton Copy Share Image
Unlike every other product that is now manufactured for the table, wine exists in as many varieties as there are people who produce it.… — Roger Scruton Copy Share Image
The abstract, unreal freedom of the liberal intellect was really nothing more than childish disobedience, amplified into anarchy. — Roger Scruton Copy Share Image
“I think we can all see the force of the idea that there are certain things that cannot be done to human beings –… — Roger Scruton Copy Share Image
When art becomes merely shock value, our sense of humanity is slowly degraded. — Roger Scruton Copy Share Image
“Western democracies did not create the virtue of citizenship; on the contrary, they grew from it. Nothing is more evident in The Federalist than… — Roger Scruton Copy Share Image
“If one looks back to the French Revolution, one sees just how easy it is for the doctrine of “human rights” to become an… — Roger Scruton Copy Share Image
“I say it was immediately apparent, but it was not apparent to the intellectual class, which has remained largely wedded to the post-war consensus… — Roger Scruton Copy Share Image
Conservatives hold on to things not only because they are attached to them, but also because they do not see the sense in radical… — Roger Scruton Copy Share Image
